|
Over the post-Freudian period there has been a gradual shift in the nature of the typical analysand, from someone needing to liberate her/himself from unconscious conflicts, to someone desperately seeking for a secure core of self. (Frosh, 1987: 248) It is the failure to develop a ‘secure core of self’ which brings many clients into therapy today, and the therapies which directly address bodily experience and expression are often an intuitive choice for such people. Early disruptions of development are somatic as well as psychological events, and may engender physical as well as psychological symptoms later in life; because of this, the adult client may look to body-based therapies in their quest to heal the somatised symptoms of psychological distress. When disruptions have occurred in the earliest stages of development, somatic therapies can offer an opportunity to enter the preverbal matrix directly, through the use of focused touch, movement and sensory awareness. A tendency, all too prevalent within modern western culture, to split body from mind and to treat body as inferior or subordinate to mind, can leave us, as individuals, without a sense of inner ground, of being embodied, of subjectivity rooted in sensory awareness, feeling, and somatic process. Daniel Stern touches the root of the problem when he describes the primary task of the infant as developing a sense of core self (Stern, 1985). His emphasis on the sense of self brings the issue clearly into the realm of direct and felt experience, back to the body, to sensation, perception and action, and out of the realm of mental construct. He describes how the senses of an emergent, core, subjective and verbal self develop out of somatic experience, out of the intimate reality of bodily sensation, feeling, and expression - which is movement. The fetus, infant and child learn through the body; through direct embodied experience they learn about themselves and the world around them. First learning is through the perceptions of touch and movement, and the nervous system matures through the continuous interaction of motor expression and sensory feedback (Cohen, 1993: 115; Hartley, 2004: 95). Deane Juhan writes: ‘Movement is the unifying bond between the mind and the body, and sensations are the substance of that bond’. (Juhan, 1987: xxvi) As the infant moves she touches the world and the world touches her, each adjustment bringing a new stream of sensory information to the brain. This tells her about where she is and who she is. It also tells her about how the world is responding to her; relationship to self and other is based on an ongoing flow of sensations that are perceived as good, bad, or indifferent. Comfort and pleasure, pain and discomfort give rise to emotional feelings which are later given names and elaborated, associated, judged, censored and maybe repressed. Body, feelings and mind evolve, and will be integrated or split off from each other to different degrees; the embodied sense of self that is our birthright may be lost or never fully developed as overwhelming physical pain, emotional distress, or over-intellectualisation sever the unity between mind and body. Developmental Movement Therapy To enter the preverbal world of the infant we can observe the details of expression, the movement initiations and responses which embody her relationship to the world. The somatic movement therapy of Body-Mind CenteringR, originated by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen (USA), has evolved a subtly nuanced study of infant movement development (Cohen, 1993; Hartley, 1995, 2004). Beginning with the first movement of new life, the expansion and contraction of the cell as it fills and empties in the process of cellular breathing, Cohen’s description of movement development continues through embryological and fetal development, birth, and the first year of life. In my psychotherapy practice I find this work offers a useful framework for viewing and working with early disruptions to the senses of self. It explores not only the neuromuscular coordinations of movement, but the process of coming-into-being of each movement pattern: what is the impulse for transition from one level of movement development to the next? how is a movement initiated and sequenced through the body, and how does it complete and resolve? where is there support for the intention behind the movement and where is support lacking? Through attending to how mind moves within the body during the initiation, sequencing and completion of an action, support can be given to repattern, or embody more fully, inefficient or inhibited sensory-motor pathways. Early memories and emotions, associated with the original learning and embodying of primal movement patterns, are held within the neuromuscular patterning; Juhan writes of ‘sensory engrams’, habitual and idiosyncratic movement styles and gestures which are rooted in the sensations and emotions experienced as these pathways were being laid down in infancy (Juhan, 1987: 263-76). These memories may re-surface, emotions may be released, and energy integrated during the process of re-embodying early movement patterns. This can have profound effects upon other areas of learning, such as social, psychological, intellectual and creative development, as they are rooted in the neurological organisation established through the process of sensory-perceptual-motor integration during the early years (Mills & Cohen, 1979). In the earliest stages, the sense of an emergent self is developing; Stern describes the sense of an emergent self as the process of ‘coming-into-being of organisation’, prior to an actual formed sense of self (Stern, 1985: 45-6). I believe this begins in utero and is supported by the motility of the cells through the process of cellular breathing, and by the organisation of fetal movement around the umbilical centre in the navel radiation pattern (Cohen). Here a rudimentary sense of being a unified whole, with separate parts that are both differentiated yet connected, begins to form on the basis of this movement organisation. Trauma or disruptions in utero could affect the potential for a developing sense of unity and connectedness. Re-embodying the navel radiation pattern of movement organisation can help create a support for recovering this underlying sense of unity; or for clients suffering from trauma at a later stage of development, it can offer an opportunity to reconnect to a state of health prior to the disruption. This can be an important resource, a safe place to return to when working through traumatic material (Rothschild, 2000:88). Although development of the sense of a core self is considered by Stern to begin around two months of age, my experience with developmental movement therapy suggests that the process of birthing calls this sense into existence, if only momentarily. I observe and sense the core self as most clearly embodied in the spinal structures, and it is called into being during the act of birth which is principally a powerful spinal movement. Along the length of the spine, head to tail and tail to head, the infant yields into and pushes against the contracting walls of the uterus in order to birth himself. This is an act of great will, of self-agency and self-coherence (Stern, 1985: 71), which calls upon the power of every cell of the infant’s body. Movements which recapitulate the birth experience can also awaken or deepen, in children or adult clients, the embodied sense of a core self, and might be integrated into therapeutic work (Hartley, 2005). During the period from about two to six or seven months, the period of development of the sense of a core self, the infant is learning to support his newly integrated spinal core upon all fours. As the limbs develop control and coordination, meaningful interaction with others and with the world around becomes increasingly possible. First he learns to yield weight through each limb, establishing a rooted connection with the ground; out of this supportive contact he pushes himself up and out of gravity. Locomotion begins and self-mastery becomes a possibility. He is also establishing body boundaries during these actions, filling himself with substance as he yields into and establishes a dynamic relationship with the earth, and defining his personal space as he pushes against earth or other. With a stable support and increasingly embodied sense of core self, he can begin to reach out - for contact and comfort, in play or curiosity. Movements based on the principles of the yield and push patterns of locomotion (Cohen) can be introduced to facilitate this development at appropriate stages of therapy. As he learns to reach out and move beyond his established boundaries, a myriad of interactions, and also responses from the environment, open up. Desire, frustration, fear, pleasure, rage, delight, shame are evoked, and the infant’s sense of a subjective self begins to develop. The therapist’s ability to relate, to witness, empathise, contain and process these raw feelings is what is called for in work addressing disruptions at this stage, as the sense of a subjective self and intersubjective relatedness (Stern) is developing. Dance movement therapy offers a wonderful vehicle to work with this process, as the therapist attunes to, mirrors and reflects back the client’s movement expressions in a variety of ways. Through her own embodied presence, the quality of her verbal expression, and at times her own movement interventions, she seeks to attune to, empathise with, and reflect back the quality and intensity of the client’s energetic and affective expressions. The infant movement patterns of rolling, crawling, yielding, pushing, reaching, grasping and pulling underlie the secure passage through these stages of psychological development and the emergence of the senses of self. Therapeutic work might integrate these movements, either as specifically focused exercises if working in a more directive mode (Hartley, 1995; Stokes, 2002), or emerging out of spontaneous movement explorations as personal, idiosyncratic gestures and movement sequences (Menzam, 2002). As a movement pattern is embodied, memories and feelings associated with the relevant phase of development may be accessed and can be integrated into consciousness; insight into how early experiences underlie current behaviour, perceptions and patterns of relating may arise from this. |
|
Seeking a Sense of Self |
